Phantom midge
The phantom midge is a small fly that spends almost its whole life as a baby in the water. Its babies are called glassworms because you can see right through them. The only parts you can easily spot are two pairs of tiny black air bags.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The larva uses its little air bags like a submarine to float up and down in the water.
Some glassworms live 70 metres deep in a lake, where hungry fish cannot easily find them.
The larva does not chase its food. It waits, and grabs whatever swims close enough.
The grown-up fly lives for less than ten days, just long enough to lay eggs.
Near big lakes in Africa, people catch huge swarms of these midges and bake them into cakes.
Most asked questions about Phantom midge
?Do phantom midges bite?
No. The grown-up midges do not bite people or suck blood.
?Why is it called a glassworm?
Because the larva is almost completely see-through, like glass.
?What do glassworms eat?
Tiny water animals, and also mosquito larvae, which they eat in large numbers.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Chaoborus
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Chaoboridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Chaoboridae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Lake fly, Glassworm
Where the facts come from
- Chaoborus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Viridiflavus. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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